Women in prison film (or WiP) is a subgenre of exploitation film that began in the late 1960s and continues to the present day.

Their stories feature imprisoned women who are subjected to sexual and physical abuse, typically by sadistic male or female prison wardens, guards and other inmates. The genre also features many films in which imprisoned women engage in lesbian sex.

Prior to these films, the only expression of pornographic women in prison was found in "true adventure" men's magazines such as Argosy in the 1950s and 1960s, although it is possible that Denis Diderot's novel The Nun anticipated the genre. Nazis tormenting damsels in distress were particularly common in these magazines.

The story usually concludes with an uprising or escape sequence in which the villains are killed. Occasionally a new inmate is an undercover reporter investigating corruption as in Bare Behind Bars or a government agent sent to rescue a political prisoner (Caged Heat 2, Love Camp 7).

The film that kicked off the genre in a new direction was Jesús Franco's 99 Women, which was a big box office success in the U.S. in 1969. That year Love Camp 7 was also among the first pure exploitation films that influenced the women in prison and Nazi exploitation genres. Since the 1970s, women-in-prison films have become a specialty product that has more to do with sexual fantasies than with real prison life.

A number of the WiP films remain banned by the BBFC in the United Kingdom. Among them are Love Camp 7 (rejected in 2002) and Women in Cellblock 9 (rejected in 2004), on the grounds that they contain substantial scenes of sexual violence and in the case of the latter an actress who at 16 was under age at the time of production rendering it child pornography under U.K. law.[1]

Jonathan Demme's Caged Heat (1974) is one of the better known WiP films and has a cult following due to its tongue-in-cheek approach and casting of horror icon Barbara Steele as the warden. Demme also co-wrote The Hot Box in 1972.

The abuse of Chinese women in Japanese detention or prisoner-of-war camps during World War II is depicted in a series of Hong Kong films. Prime examples include Bamboo House of Dolls (1973) with Birte Tove, Great Escape from a Women's Prison, and Men Behind the Sun (1988).

Comfort Women (1992) is based on real events. Chinese prostitutes are abducted by Japanese soldiers and used for brutal scientific experiments at the notorious Unit 731 medical camp.

In Japan, prison films are often made into a series based on popular characters from manga comics such as Prisoner Maria and the Sasori (Scorpion) series which includes Female Convict 701: Scorpion starring Meiko Kaji. Many Japanese films include themes of vengeance and retribution with a heroine who take revenge against the drug or prostitution syndicates responsible for her incarceration.

The 'Jungle Prison' subgenre has films set in fictional Banana republic nations run by corrupt dictators in either South America or Southeast Asia. The majority of these were filmed in the Philippines where production costs are low. Here, a group of nubile prisoners are herded together in a stockade prison camp and used as slave labor, doing tasks such as cutting sugar cane or digging in a quarry. These films usually involve a revolution subplot with political prisoners freed by other inmates in a climactic raid where the villains are killed.

The especially brutal Escape from Hell, aka Escape (1979) and its sequel Hotel Paradise came from Italy. Jess Franco's Sadomania features scenes such as gladiator fights to the death and prisoners hunted like animals in an alligator-infested swamp.

The Nunsploitation (nun exploitation) subgenre emerged at the same time as the WiP film and is composed of the same basic elements. The stories are set in isolated convents that resemble prisons where sexually-repressed nuns are driven to rampant lesbianism and perversity.

The Mother Superior is usually a cruel and corrupt warden-like martinet. The nuns are treated like convicts, with rule-breakers subjected to whippings or Inquisition-style tortures. The added element of religious guilt entails scenes of masochism and self-flagellation.

The WiP film has also expanded into other areas and film genres such as horror and science fiction.

A notable European horror-hybrid is the 1969 Spanish film, The House That Screamed. A psycho-killer lurks in a house for wayward girls run by a harsh disciplinarian (Lilli Palmer). This groundbreaking film has influenced many others, particularly the Dario Argento thriller Suspiria.

Human Experiments (1979), and Hellhole (1985) are two examples of a spate of horror films where prisoners are experimented on by mad scientists.

Werewolf in a Women's Prison (2006) draws from the monster-movie genre.

Star Slammer, aka Prison Ship (1986) is one of several low-budget space sagas set in the future.[1]

Chained Heat 3: Hell Mountain (1998) and Chained Rage: Slave to Love (2002) are both set in a barbaric post-nuclear world where slaves are forced to toil in the mines.

Terminal Island (1973) with Phyllis Davis, Tom Selleck, and Marta Kristen and Caged in Paradise (1989) starring Irene Cara are both set on isolated island penal colonies with no prisons or guards. Inmates are simply stranded there and must fend for themselves. The 1985 Japanese film Banished Behind Bars has a similar theme.

In recent years, North American Pictures, the Canadian makers of Chained Heat 2 set up a separate production company in the Czech Republic called Bound Heat Films for creating R-rated, erotic WiP, Nazisploitation, and female slavery films. Many of these star Rena Riffel (from Showgirls). Titles include: School of Surrender, Dark Confessions, Stories from Slave Life, No Escape, Caligula's Spawn, Slave Huntress, and Bound Cargo.[2] While not technically considered pornography the nudity in many of the scenes in these films draws on fetishes as a dramatic element.

Bars and Stripes is a video producer that maintains a website entirely devoted to its line of prison-based BDSM fetish films. A stable of recurring "inmates" are listed with mug shots and information. Most of the films are part of a continuing story. Other companies that exclusively produce prison fetish films include: Chain Gang Girls, CagedTushy.com, and SpankCamp.com.

The 1984 video (directed by Bob Giraldi [2]) for Jermaine Jackson's song "Dynamite" reverses the gender of the prisoners and staff, with Jackson attempting to lead an escape from a prison dominated by ruthless female guards.

In a 1996 episode of Night Stand with Dick Dietrick Dick's guest is a woman who was falsely imprisoned in an abusive jail. Dick takes up her cause by making an exploitive WiP film (starring himself as the sadistic warden.)

The Halfway House (2004) with Mary Woronov is a combined satire of women in prison films, nunsploitation, and z-grade occult horror flicks.

Janet Perlman's satirical graphic novel Penguins Behind Bars is a parody of the women in prison genre. It was later adapted by Perlman as an animated short which aired in the U.S. on Cartoon Network.[3][4]